In the first instance, it may sound ridiculous to hear that an Instagram business account is private. Most brands and businesses aim to reach thousands and millions of audiences by gaining followers and becoming visible to eyes that would appreciate their content, products, and services.
Why, then, should a business make its Instagram account private? Keeping a private account by a business may be weird, but it could also be a strategy. To know more about a private Instagram account, read some of the helpful information below.
Differences Between Private And Public Instagram Accounts
For good decision-making, it’s important to understand the differences between a public Instagram account and a private one. A public account gives you unique access to analytics and promotional features. It also helps to appear widely on searches, feed lists, explore pages, and so on so that more eyes see your account and your profile more easily. Meanwhile, a private account is just as the name implies. It’s not open to just anybody. And having a private Instagram account means only your followers would be able to view and engage with your content, except with a private Instagram viewer app. Your content wouldn’t appear on those searches even when you use popular hashtags. Anyone that wants to view your profile has to send a follow request which you must accept before they can start engaging your content.
Advantages of Switching To A Private Business Instagram Account
If your business is planning to switch to a private Instagram account, consider these advantages:
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It Helps You To Attract Curious Minds
The Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is real. When people come across your account and discover it’s private, they get more curious to know what makes it exclusive. It makes your current followers feel valued and increases the desire for more people to join the family. One way to gain the trust of your audience is to offer firsthand exclusive deals. It would help you retain your current followers as they would be looking for what’s new. No one wants to miss out on the latest. Your business could leverage this by making your account private so that your current followers would feel special.
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It Is A Means Of Gaining More Followers
Because only your followers can see private Instagram posts, curious minds are compelled to follow your page. They will continually miss out on your juicy content until they click the follow button. It’s how you gain more followers. To leverage this, you should ensure that your business account feeds your followers with valuable content that would be attractive to others. When they share your content, their friends are enticed to follow your account to get similar information firsthand. Through this, your business account grows slowly but steadily.
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It Helps To Filter Followers
It has been said that having a private Instagram account would help you gain more followers. Not only would you have more followers, but they would all be authentic. What uses many followers that are nothing more than fake numbers? Setting your business account as private helps you to get rid of and filter away spam accounts.
Spam accounts have little or no value to your engagement. They cannot patronize you nor comment on your content meaningfully. Rather, they might even spam you with irrelevant messages. Therefore, you could consider going for a private business account to ensure that you have 100% authentic followers interested in what you do and what you can offer.
Disadvantages Of A Private Instagram Business Account
Part of what you should know are some cons of using a private account for your business. The major ones include:
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It Restricts Promoted Content
With a private account, you would still be able to promote your content. However, only your followers will be able to see the promoted content. It’s a huge difference between a public and a private account. Promoted content could reach thousands of people for a public account, depending on the ads’ demographics and targets. And while a private account would not have this luxury of additional features, promoted ads might not be a worthy investment for private accounts.
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No Profile Insights
Another limitation with private Instagram accounts for your business is that it doesn’t include features to get metrics, track traffic, or analyze your profile’s performance. It will be a stumbling block to knowing how much you’ve grown and how far your content has gone.
Conclusion
The above-listed things you need to know before changing your Instagram business account into a private one. There are advantages involved in taking this step as it could be a good strategy. However, there are cons to it that you should not be ignorant of.